Email Protection with F-Prot

From the FPAV site, ["F-PROT Antivirus provides automatic real-time file system protection by monitoring all files including archives, code downloads and e-mail attachments that are accessed on your computer. We highly recommend keeping your automatic file system protection enabled to provide optimal virus protection on your computer."]

So I see there is protection from malicious email attachments, but what about the email without attachments. I once had an attack from an email without any attachment. The AV caught it, but I have the impression that a virus can be within the basic message. Is that incorrect?

If correct, then how does FPAV protect? Maybe when the virus attempts to execute?

Thanks,
Jerry

 

I'm not sure about F-Prot, but AFAIK malware can be embedded in the HTML of the message itself.